


The Light of a Candle

by Esteliel



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Javert Survives, Body Worship, Established Relationship, First Time Blow Jobs, M/M, Muscles, Undressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-21 10:43:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4826126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/pseuds/Esteliel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Javert undresses Valjean for the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Light of a Candle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



They had done this three times so far. Javert remembered each and every encounter in full detail. Every time, it had happened in the darkness, and they had wrapped the night around themselves to hide their shame as they hesitantly sought to learn how to touch without bruising skin that still flinched far too easily at the touch of another.

Every time confidence had built alongside the strange urgency that made Javert grip harder than should be allowed to him, and that dragged soft sounds from Valjean's mouth which he tried to stifle in a pillow.

Every time it had been good. And yet, once it was done, they would turn from each other and lie there in the darkness, limbs still trembling, breathlessly listening for a condemnation that would not come.

The fourth time, Valjean had fallen asleep while reading in the light of a candle. 

When Javert reached across him to gently take the book from his fingers, Valjean suddenly woke. His eyes looked tired, and without thought Javert leaned forward to press a kiss to the wrinkles shadowed by the light of the candle. Valjean did not make a sound, although his hands released the book, and Javert, who had taken hold of it to carelessly put it away, suddenly found his hands returning to where the book had rested a moment ago, touching the shirt through which he had felt the warm, hard planes of Valjean's chest before.

He swallowed. His hand flattened. A soft sound escaped Valjean, little more than a shocked exhalation, but Valjean did not move, and, suddenly emboldened, Javert allowed his hands to drift lower and lower, until they could reverently grasp the hem of Valjean's shirt.

Valjean froze. Javert pushed his thumbs into his thigh just to feel the resistance of his muscles, and then pushed the shirt up an inch. He could feel Valjean's muscles tense beneath his hands. Another inch; another gasp that made him want to lean forward to catch those sounds in his mouth.

Instead, he made the mistake of looking down. There, uncovered by the blanket, a sliver of skin had been revealed, and suddenly Javert had to bite back a groan of his own, his hands trembling with impatience as he pulled the shirt further back. At last, Valjean's left thigh was revealed to his eyes, thick with tense muscles that stood out in hard relief, as though God had carved Valjean out of warm marble instead of flesh.

He could not bear it anymore. He dragged a thumb alongside an indentation. Beneath his touch, the tense muscle quivered, and with a groan Javert abandoned thought to lean down and put his mouth to it, feeling the heat of skin and the softness of fine hair as he kissed a path of tender worship up the hard thigh.

Valjean was trembling beneath him. Javert explored the raised bulge of a muscle with his tongue, followed it where it dipped down again until Javert's whiskers brush the skin of Valjean's other thigh. There was a gasp at the touch, and Javert stopped. 

He had touched Valjean before, but never like this. There, in the darkness beneath the shirt, between Valjean's thighs, his hand had rested, had learned how to give pleasure until Valjean's body had at last relaxed with a long sigh of relief against him. But that had been in the darkness. Those had been his hands, hardened by long years of labor, blunt instruments to which gentler use still did not come easily.

To put his mouth there instead – to see, and to feel, and to be seen in return – it was fearful and exhilarating at once. 

Javert hesitated for a long moment. He could hear Valjean's quick, frightened breathing. 

_Was_ it fear? Javert thought it had to be, for even now, a part of him felt the same fear: that some things that might flourish in the twilight, some scars covered with the balm of darkness, might not be able to withstand being torn into the light.

Javert breathed against Valjean's thigh. He wanted to dig his fingers into it, bite at the tense muscle until it left a mark and then soothe away any ache with kisses – but Valjean was tense beneath his touch, and Javert found himself incapable to even consider the thought of a world where he could not come to rest at last against the strong body of Jean Valjean. Was that not worth more than the depraved curiosity that made him ache for the sight of Valjean, for the taste of him in his mouth?

He drew away. It seemed impossible to release Valjean, but Javert forced himself to take his hands off Valjean's thigh and straighten, to turn his head away for a moment to gather his thoughts, even though his mind was still reeling with the ache of his hunger for him.

“Javert,” Valjean said after a moment. His voice was soft, and Javert could hear the uncertainty in it. 

Had he made Valjean afraid of him? Valjean's breath was still coming fast. Had Javert once more made this man feel like prey, driven into a corner by Javert's unthinking greed to have him in his hands?

“Javert,” Valjean said again, and this time there was no denying the fear in his voice.

Javert took a deep breath before he turned. Perhaps it could still be fixed if only he could apologize and find a reason...

The sight that awaited him stunned him into speechlessness. Valjean had sat up, and his hands, those calloused fingers that touched each page of his books with such reverence, now grasped the hem of his shirt so tightly that his knuckles showed white against his skin. 

Valjean held Javert's gaze for a long moment. Then he swallowed, and his hands pulled up his shirt. More and more skin was bared until Valjean had to close his eyes, his face flushed with heat, the ways in which desire had made him harden displayed to Javert's eyes fully in the light of the candle.

Valjean's hands were trembling. The fabric was bunched up tightly in his fingers. Javert could not breathe as he looked at him, taking in those tense, powerful thighs, the hard muscles of Valjean's stomach shifting beneath his gaze – and there, swelling further despite the scrutiny, that length that he had stroked with his fingers but never seen revealed like this, flushed with blood and straining towards him while Valjean could not bear to meet his eyes.

“Go on,” Javert said and swallowed, barely able to believe that he could demand such a thing when Valjean had already given him such a gift. “More. Please.”

Valjean took a deep breath. Once more the shirt was raised another inch, and then another, his chest bared one finger's width after another until Javert's mouth was dry with desire. Valjean's body was gleaming in the light of the candle, powerful and sensual like a statue despite the way he trembled before him. Could Valjean truly be afraid of his reaction to such a sight? It seemed impossible.

“Good,” he said at last when Valjean's chest, too, had been revealed to him, and Valjean's eyes opened reluctantly even as his fingers tightened nervously around the shirt. “Now, hold it like that.”

This time, he pressed his lips to Valjean's stomach, mouthing at the muscles that shifted beneath his touch. His fingers gripped Valjean's thighs, pressing deep into the muscles simply for the pleasure of feeling their strength.

At last, when he could scarcely bear it anymore, he moved lower, breathing against wiry hair, light-headed with want. Valjean made a breathless sound when Javert's shoulder brushed against where Javert could now feel him hard and hot against his body. Again Javert paused. Again he looked up, saw Valjean's hands still hold up the shirt, Valjean's eyes meeting his.

Javert rested a hand against Valjean's chest and spread his fingers. Valjean's heart was racing, his chest heaving with every fast breath he took. Javert listened to the thunder of his own heart, the embers of arousal in the pit of his stomach fanned to new heat when Valjean's eyes slid away again.

“Look at me,” he ordered, and then, “Please,” punctuated by another kiss to Valjean's stomach.

Valjean's eyes met him when he looked up again, wide and frightened, and somewhere below that was the iron courage he so admired: the strength that even now allowed Valjean to take this step, to offer himself up to Javert's eyes and Javert's touch for no other reason than that Javert had asked it.

Javert's hand slid down Valjean's thighs again, admiring the muscles that flexed instinctively beneath the caress. His thumbs stroked along the sensitive inside of Valjean's thighs, wondering if even Valjean's hands had ever traveled and lingered here. Then he lowered his head, and kissed Valjean _there_ , and he did not look up again until long moments later, Valjean's release still on his lips and his mouth. This time it was Valjean who looked at him in the warm light of the candle, breathless and overwhelmed, and Javert who flushed at being seen when a finger touched his mouth with grateful disbelief.


End file.
